Tiles now come in four sizes: The two sizes in Windows 8, regular square and double-wide, are now augmented by a tiny quarter-size and a big four-times size. Microsoft added a few don't-shoot-yourself-in-the-foot improvements to the Metro Start screen, primarily imposing a Customize mode that keeps you from dragging or deleting a tile unless you really want to. And SkyDrive? Baking SkyDrive into Windows is long overdue, but the intrusive way it's implemented by default makes SkyDrive work more like a straitjacket and less like an option. I guess somebody on the Metro apps team didn't get the memo. Libraries, introduced in Windows 7 and extended in Windows 8, have been decapitated - although several Microsoft apps use them. Smart Search is plenty smart for Microsoft and its advertising ambitions, but for Windows customers, it's the worst privacy intrusion in the history of Windows. In the backward direction, we have lamentable changes related to Smart Search, Libraries, and SkyDrive. Alas, that migration is not yet complete.
#Live tiles windows 8.1 Pc
On the old-fashioned desktop, we have the ersatz Start button that merely dumps you back into Metro, the ability to boot to the desktop, and a way to disable all the infuriating and intrusive hot corners inherited from Metro.Įxperienced Windows users who like to run on the Metro side - all 10 of you - will also appreciate the migration of settings and options from the legacy Control Panel over to the full-screen Metro PC Settings window. In the forward direction we have a little more flexibility in Metro with live tiles, more "discoverability" for inscrutable settings and actions, and a Metro Photos app that largely eliminates the need for a free photo editing package.
#Live tiles windows 8.1 windows 8.1
Think of Windows 8.1 as a few steps forward and a few steps back. We'll review the new Microsoft-originated Metro apps as they become available. 18 is anybody's guess, but it's likely that several of the Microsoft-written Metro apps will sprout much-needed features.
What will happen between now and General Availability on Oct.
You can bet your bottom dollar that the Microsoft devs are working overtime to zap a few outstanding bugs (I've hit a few) and to spiff up the still-laggardly Metro apps.
This review covers Windows 8.1 as we see it right now - with the official bits available, as of yesterday, on TechNet and MSDN. And the only reasonable way to use the old-fashioned desktop still requires a third-party Start menu utility. The best improvements for developers sweep away some infantile restrictions. The best improvements for desktop users dismantle Windows 8's pushy ways - a fact that speaks volumes.
Windows 8.1 also installs the worst privacy-busting feature Windows has ever seen, and it nukes several key Windows 7 features in its headlong pursuit of SkyDrive profits. Touch-loving tablet users are still saddled with a touch-hostile Windows desktop, while point-and-clickers who live and breathe the Windows desktop still can't make Metro go away.
#Live tiles windows 8.1 windows 8
Windows 8.1 follows Windows 8 in typical Microsoft "version 2.0" fashion, changing a bit of eye candy and dangling several worthwhile improvements - but hardly solving the underlying problem.